Is there a way to get notified of posts to reap.ec please? I can’t see an RSS feed or anything similar.

Thanks.

]]>Comment on Update by jameshttps://olabini.se/blog/2014/08/update/#comment-292464
Fri, 21 Nov 2014 20:29:28 +0000https://olabini.se/blog/?p=800#comment-292464I’m curious what mobile device you settled on. You’ve previously mentioned that you mentioned that you were uncomfortable with a lot of phone hardware (which is tricky, especially since code can run on sim cards now). Did you pull a Stallman and ditch mobile phones altogether?
]]>Comment on How do you safely communicate over email? by gamonthttps://olabini.se/blog/2013/05/how-do-you-safely-communicate-over-email/#comment-277326
Sat, 27 Sep 2014 23:32:06 +0000https://olabini.com/blog/?p=786#comment-277326What you think about these solutions ?http://cpbotha.net/2013/09/15/dear-usa-my-data-has-left-your-building/
]]>Comment on Complexity and Brain Size by Alianna J. Marenhttps://olabini.se/blog/2012/11/complexity-and-brain-size/#comment-275920
Sun, 14 Sep 2014 12:45:11 +0000http://olabini.com/blog/?p=784#comment-275920Good question that you’ve posted, and one that will characterize many of the leading investigations – now that the “easy problems” have been largely solved, and the large ones do seem to require sustained and long-term team efforts.

Ian makes a very good point, offering the examples of the NASA endeavors, etc.

Years ago, I worked in a research environment in which two of the lead researchers were a husband and wife team. They told me that they spent the first several years just learning each other’s technical language and point of reference. This point has stayed with me.

The kinds of challenges that you describe – both as scoping the problem and defining the approach, and building the computational infrastructure, are definitely team-types of problems.

I suggest that the focus be on the long-term, understanding that most team members will invest a lot of time just in learning about the problem and each others’ perspectives/languages/unique skill sets – what the others bring to the project.

Big problems will indeed be larger than one person’s brain, even though one person (or two or three) may be the leads. Some specialized knowledge will always be in the brains of a few core people; perhaps not the team leads, but essential nevertheless.

Team stability – often translating into a long-term vision and sustained funding – are key.

Remember that when NASA solved the moon landing problem, there was a clear and coherent vision, and ample funding. This created the environment in which the challenge was solved.

Also, consider the timeframe: from May, 1961, when President JFK announced the moon landing goal, to the first landing in 1969 – nine years of sustained, focused activity on the part of several teams and industries that had to work together with NASA.

Also, the goal was sufficiently ambitious and heroic enough to attract the best-of-the-best in engineering talent, and cause them to hugely dedicate their lives and their emotional energies to working together to achieve this goal.

That may be a crucial component – that the challenge has to engage the participants at a visceral level, getting their whole-being buy-in, not just as an intellectual pursuit.

Glad you’ve raised this question in your post, and look forward to seeing more from you.

I had no idea you’d moved to Equador. Are there interesting political reasons?

“One of the things that worry me about all this is the continued focus on using browsers to implement security aware applications.” — RIGHT!

]]>Comment on Path problem with Emacs on Mac OS X by Johnhttps://olabini.se/blog/2009/12/path-problem-with-emacs-on-mac-os-x/#comment-271188
Fri, 18 Jul 2014 21:14:31 +0000http://olabini.com/blog/?p=690#comment-271188Another way to solve the problem is to create a new Mac app that sets the right environment and then runs Emacs.app. Drag the new app into the Dock, instead of Emacs.app. For more complete directions, see ‘Using Emacs.app from the Dock’ in http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsForMacOS#toc21
]]>Comment on Switching My Life by simonhhttps://olabini.se/blog/2013/09/switching-my-life/#comment-226961
Sun, 29 Sep 2013 19:40:03 +0000https://olabini.com/blog/?p=791#comment-226961Good for you, Ola. I’ve been using openSUSE for about three years now. Slackware before that. Never understood the fascination with Apple lock in.

Anyway, for passwords, you can’t get much more secure than a book with them written in. I’ve been doing this for about ten years. Low tech, yes.